Plymouth memories of an octogenarian

by William T. Davis

I have said that at the time the Civil War broke out the volunteer militia was in its prime. Under the law each company furnished its own uniforms, while the state furnished to the privates arms and equipments. Such men as George T. Bigelow, afterwards Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, Lincoln Flagg Brigham, afterwards Chief Justice of the Superior Court, Ivers J. Austin, John C. Park, and Elbridge Gerry Austin, attorneys at law, Newell A. Thompson, merchant, and Charles O. Rogers, editor of the Boston Journal, were captains of companies. With a population in the state of less than thirteen hundred thousand, the militia force was 5,593 officers and men, while in 1905, with a population of three millions, it is no larger, which is equivalent to a falling off of fifty per cent. The idea underlying the plan of the reformers of the militia was to bring it up to the standard of the regular army, which any practical man must see cannot be done, with volunteer enlistments, small pay and an exaction of service which busy men cannot afford to render. The first blow struck at the life of the militia by the meddlers, was to make the regiment instead of the company the unit of organization, and have all the companies in the regiment uniformed alike.

Under this system the individuality of the company was lost at once, its pride and esprit de corps were extinguished. Even the names of company commanders became practically unknown, and as galley convicts are known by their number, the companies were only known by their letter. Before the war every boy in Boston knew the New England Guards, the City Guards, the Boston Light Infantry, and the Fusileers, and as each paraded in the streets, every man was ambitious to have his company excel in numbers, in dress, and in march. On one occasion the Boston Light Infantry with Dodworth’s Band marched up State street one hundred and seventeen strong, and the next day the City Guards with the Brigade Band marched up the same street with one hundred and eighteen in the ranks. The flourishing condition of the Independent Corps of Cadets, shows what the Volunteer Militia might have been without the so-called reform to which I have alluded. The death blow to the volunteer militia was struck when the present armory law was enacted. The requirement that towns, in which companies are chartered, shall furnish armories, has extinguished the militia in the towns, in only five of which, out of three hundred and twenty-one, companies now exist. To make the army law the more destructive in its effect on the militia, the most extravagant demands were made by the authorities for accommodations, in many instances including the equipment of club houses, which towns with a due view to economy were not disposed to meet. Aside from all other considerations the armory law is not only oppressive in its operations, but it violates the underlying principles of our constitution, to wit: equality of taxation and the enactment of equal laws, inasmuch as it imposes for the support of a state institution, burdens on a few towns and exempts all the rest. It is not an answer to this objection to say that towns incurring armory expenses receive certain reimbursements from the state, inasmuch as the reimbursement ceases with company disbandments, and towns losing it are left with an armory on their hands for the erection of which they have incurred large expense; and inasmuch, also, as the towns maintaining armories, are also taxed for their share of the reimbursements. It is not a rash prophecy that if the present militia laws continue in operation, not many years will elapse before militia organizations will be confined to the cities of the Commonwealth. In closing the foregoing narrative concerning the militia, it will be proper to refer more particularly to the Plymouth volunteer companies. The Plymouth Artillery was organized January 7, 1777. Thos. Mayhew was the first commander, and as far as I have been able to ascertain, it was commanded afterwards until its disbandment about the year 1850 by the following captains: Geo. Drew, 1804-09; Wm. Davis, 1810-15; Southworth Shaw, 1816-20; John Sampson, 1821-24; Nathaniel Wood, 1825; Joseph Allen, 1826-29; David Bradford, 1830-32; Eleazer Stephens Bartlett, 1833-35; Wm. Parsons, 1836-39; Ephriam Holmes, 1840-41; David Holmes, 1842; Wendell Hall, 1843-45; Samuel West Bagnall, 1846-47; Ebenezer S. Griffin, 1848; and Lt. Robert Finney, 1849. The field pieces furnished to the company by the state were kept for many years in a gun house located by permission of the town on the northeast corner of Training Green, which on the disbandment of the company was sold to Henry Whiting, Jr., who made of it the house in which he lived and died on the east side of Sandwich street, next to the south corner of Winter street.

The Standish Guards was chartered in 1818, and its commanders up to the time of its disbandment in 1883 were: Coomer Weston, Bridgham Russell, James G. Gleason, John Bartlett, Wm. T. Drew, Jeremiah Farris, Coomer Weston, Jr., Barnabas Churchill, Benjamin Bagnall, Sylvanus H. Churchill, Charles Raymond, Joseph W. Collingwood, Charles C. Doten, Josiah R. Drew, Stephen C. Phinney, Herbert Morissey and Joseph W. Hunting. The present Plymouth company was chartered in 1888, and attached as Company D to the Fifth Regiment. In 1770 a powder house was built by the town at the northwesterly end of Burial Hill, which was removed within the memory of the present generation. It was intended as a place of deposit for powder belonging to the town, but a vote was passed by the town requiring all powder brought into town by any person to be placed in it, excepting amounts not exceeding fifty pounds in the hands of any trader, and twenty pounds in the hands of any other inhabitant. The tablet containing an inscription, which was originally placed in the wall of the building is now in Pilgrim Hall.

I do not intend to say much more concerning Boston, but as every eastern Massachusetts person looks on that city as his own, I have ventured to say more than I otherwise would. Until about the time of the Revolution there were no sidewalks in the city, and most of the streets were paved with cobble stones and sloped toward the centre, thus forming a surface drain. That style of street was rather Dutch than English, and may still be seen in Holland. It was universal in New York until the middle of the eighteenth century, when Madam Provost laid down flagstones called walking-sides, for the convenience of visitors to her business offices. The surface drainage above referred to was universal in Plymouth until after South Pond water was introduced in 1855, when the numerous wells in town were converted into cesspools, and initiated the first step in the present sewage system of the town.

Before leaving Boston a few words about its theatres and its harbor and navigation will not be out of place. The first theatre was established in 1792 in Hawley street, but though its representations were advertised as moral lectures, it was suppressed as violating the law. The law was repealed in the same year, and on the 3rd of February, 1794, the Federal street theatre, on the corner of Franklin and Federal streets was opened, and burned in 1798. It was at once rebuilt and reopened in the same year, continuing until 1833, under various managers as a popular resort. During its career Edmund Kean, Macready, J. B. Booth, and John Howard Payne, appeared on its stage, and in 1832 I attended a performance there by the Ravels in a play called “The Skaters of Smolenska,” of which I have a vivid recollection. In later years I had the pleasure of an intimate acquaintance with John Howard Payne, who at the age of twenty created a sensation in the theatrical world under the soubriquet of the youthful Roscius, and who later was the author of “Sweet Home.” He was born in Easthampton, Long Island, June 9, 1792, and appeared at the Park theatre in New York, February 24, 1809, as “Young Norval.” On June 4, 1813, he appeared at the Drury Lane Theatre in London. He left the stage after a few years, but remained in London engaged in writing plays, among which were “Brutus,” which still holds its place on the stage, “Therese” and “Charles the Second.” He also wrote “Clari, or the Maid of Milan,” which was produced as an opera, and contained the song which gave him special distinction. In 1832 he returned to the United States, and in 1841 was appointed Consul at Tunis. On his removal from office by Polk in 1846, he started for home, but lingered in Paris while efforts were making for his restoration to the Consulate. In the autumn of that year I formed an acquaintance with him, which became intimate. We were in the habit of dining together frequently at Tavernier’s restaurant in the Palais Royal, and one day while we were strolling through the quadrangle of the Palais where fountains were playing, bands performing, and children amusing themselves, he called my attention to a round window in the rear attic of the Palais, where, separated from the main building, rooms were let for various purposes, and said, “In that room with a scene like this before my eyes, I wrote ‘Home Sweet Home.’” He further said that he had come over from London discouraged, in want and almost in despair, and with the thought of home the words came to his lips and were uttered like a sigh for the scenes of his youth, which he feared he should never see again. He was restored to his Consulate, and died in Tunis, April 10, 1852. How easy it is to imagine him looking from that window on the gay scenes below and uttering the words:

“An exile from home, pleasure dazzles in vain,

Ah, give me my lowly thatched cottage again;

The birds, singing sweetly that came to my call,

Give me them and that peace of mind dearer than all.”

His body was brought home and buried, I think, in Washington.